


Between the Old Year and the New

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Community: element_flash, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something lies buried in Fenchurch St Paul that should not be allowed to wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the New Year's Eve challenge on [element_flash](http://element-flash.livejournal.com/). The setting is from Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors, but this work doesn't contain any Sayers characters (unless you count the bells).

Of the year 1940, barely a couple of hours remained. A sullen darkness lay across the Norfolk fens; if any lights were still lit, the strictly-enforced blackout prevented so much as a glimmer being seen from outside. Above, the meagre light of the new moon failed to penetrate the clouds overhead. From the top of the church tower at Fenchurch St Paul, the land could be seen stretching away in every direction, lost in shadow. 

None of the villagers was abroad that night. Even if one had happened to pass the church and looked up at the tower, it is doubtful whether they would have noticed the three people looking out over the fen. 

"I haven't been here for a long time," Sapphire said. She ran her finger idly across the weathered stone of the parapet. "Nothing seems to have changed much." 

"Only your clothes," the short, stocky man on her right said. 

Sapphire, who was wearing a WAAF uniform, made a minor gesture of acknowledgement. "There's a war on." She turned to the man on her left. "I don't think you've been here before, have you? Certainly not with me." 

"Never," Steel replied curtly. "What's the background?" 

"Fairly simple." She nodded at the stocky man. "You tell him, Bronze." 

"Not a lot to say," the man replied. In the darkness, he was a mere outline, but the other two were quite familiar with his usual appearance. His clothes, as ever, suggested that he might be a gentleman farmer or country veterinerian — an impression accented by his roughly-trimmed beard and shrewd expression. "There's something buried down there." He pointed down at the graveyard and the field beyond, though it was hardly visible in the darkness. "At least, it isn't quite a thing. And now and again, it needs checking up on. Else it gets lively." 

Steel nodded. "I know the technique, of course. And you two have been containing this entity for the last...?" 

"Four thousand years, give or take." 

Steel closed the last link in his chain of logic. "Then something's different, this time, or I wouldn't be here. What's changed?" 

"That's what we're here to find out," Sapphire said. "Shall we go in?" 

A trapdoor, with a ladder below, gave access to the upper level of the tower. One by one, the three Elements climbed down. While the night outside had been dark, the belfry was almost entirely lightless, particularly after Bronze closed the trapdoor above them. Once he had done so, Sapphire pulled a small torch from the pocket of her uniform, and shone it around. The upper half of the chamber was filled with a timber frame, in which eight bells hung, each in turn briefly visible as the torchlight passed across them. Their mouths gaped hungrily downwards. 

"Now," Bronze murmured, clambering from the ladder onto the frame. "Let's be having you." Walking sure-footedly, he made his way to where the largest bell hung, and leaned over it. As he did so, his hand brushed against one of the others. Instantly, the belfry was filled with a vibration, less heard than felt. Sapphire, still clinging to the ladder, gasped and nearly lost her grip on the torch. 

"Easy. Easy." Bronze stroked the bell, and the vibrations died away. "She's on edge. They all are. Ought to be ringing the New Year in, and they aren't." 

"There's more than that." Sapphire handed the torch to Steel, climbed a few steps on the ladder, and reached out to the closest bell. Her hand rested on it, and her eyes glowed blue. There was no vibration this time, but a chill seemed to spread through the belfry. 

Sapphire removed her hand. "Someone died here," she said. "Another one. Not too many years ago." 

"That'll be the third," Bronze said. "You know it can't be helped." 

"No, but it's a factor we need to account for." 

Steel looked from one to the other. "This is all part of the routine, I take it?" 

"I'm afraid so." 

"She was cast in that field. The one where it's buried." Bronze indicated the tenor bell, hanging quietly just below his feet. "So there's a connection — and sometimes a price." He looked at Sapphire. "Ready?" 

"One moment." Sapphire climbed down the ladder and took Steel's hand in her own. "Ready." 

"Now, then." Bronze crouched down and placed both hands on the crown of the great bell. "What have you got for us?" 

Golden light shone in his eyes, and once more the belfry was shaken by something only the three Elements could sense. The tower walls seemed to dissolve around them; they were standing outside, at the bottom of a shallow pit. Above them, against the clouds, darker shadows were moving, and the menacing hum of aircraft engines could be heard. Then, one shape peeled away from the rest, heading directly for them, fire trailing from one of its wings. It plunged toward them, about to crush them utterly— 

—And they were back in the belfry, the vibrations fading. 

"That, I take it, is the problem at hand," Sapphire said. 

Bronze nodded. "Looks like it. Bomber of some kind, wasn't it?" 

"A Heinkel 111," Steel said. "Carrying a couple of tons of high explosive. And coming down, I take it, exactly where your not-quite-a-thing is buried. That can't be a coincidence. Whatever's down there wants to blast itself out." 

"Explosive don't mean a lot by itself. But all the crew, dying at once, and so close..." Bronze shook his head. "Nasty." 

"Then I suspect we're here to stop it. No crash, no problem." 

"That's about it." Bronze looked down at Steel. "Maybe this is why you're here, this time. Something like that's more in your way than mine. Got any ideas?" 

"We need to get to that bomber. We can't just stand around waiting for it to crash — by the time it's close enough for us to do anything, it'll be too late." He looked at Sapphire as she let go of his hand. "Where are you going?" 

Sapphire was ascending the ladder again. "You're right, of course," she said. "But there's only one way any of us can find that plane in time." 

"The same way you found it before, you mean?" 

"That's right. I think if two of us cooperated, we could open a path to it." By now she was walking elegantly across the bellframe to join Bronze. "And the third one could follow it." 

Steel considered the proposition. It was logical, but... "And then what? I stop one aircraft. Your entity switches its attention to another and we're back where we started." 

"Can't be that easy for it," Bronze said. "Else it'd have done that on the first plane it saw. There's got to be something particular about that plane." 

"Probably not standard equipment," Sapphire said. "I'd suspect something brought on board by one of the crew — maybe without their conscious knowledge." 

They were behaving like a double-act, Steel reflected privately. But there wasn't any other likely course of action. 

"Do it," he said. 

Bronze and Sapphire knelt down on the frame and let their hands rest on the bell. Sound burst from it in every harmonic of the scale, waves of vibration that closed in on Steel, tightening around him like ripples in reverse. 

The belfry spun away into darkness. For an instant, he thought he picked up a parting thought from Sapphire: _Make sure you bring my torch back._


	2. Chapter 2

The sun was warm and bright. From where Steel was lying on the grass, he could see birds floating overhead. He jumped to his feet, instantly on the alert, and looked around. He was standing near the top of a small rise, an island of relatively solid ground surrounded by endless stretches of water and marshland. Below him, boats were drawn up on the shores of the island, simplistic affairs of animal skin stretched over wood. Slowly, he turned around. Behind him, on top of the island, was a circular enclosure, a hedge of some kind, dense enough that the interior could not be seen. From within the enclosure, grey smoke was rising, and chanting could be heard. 

Steel knelt and touched the ground, acutely feeling the lack of Sapphire's specialised senses. He couldn't be sure, but there was something familiar about the island. Its general shape and immediate surroundings were suggestive: it might very well be that he was in the same place, but thousands of years earlier in time. It was clear that Sapphire and Bronze's attempt to transport him to the bomber hadn't gone according to plan. Possibly their adversary had attempted to interfere, diverting him to a time where it was at its strongest. It was also conceivable, if barely, that his fellow Elements had had other plans than the ones they'd shared with him. 

As if his thought had summoned them, he heard their voices, coming from the far side of the enclosure. He might have called out to them, by voice or mind, but something made him hesitate. Then they came into view round the curve of the hedge, and he ducked back out of sight, his determination not to be seen redoubled. Sapphire was wearing blue, of course, but it was a far cry from the uniform she'd had on before. Her clothes were a long, plain dress and a short-sleeved tunic, the latter clasped with an elaborate brooch. On her bare arms she wore copper bangles, and a thin band of the same metal encircled her head. Bronze's costume was similarly altered: he was wearing a brown cloak over a dark green tunic, and a sword swung at his waist. But that, by itself, wouldn't have made Steel so determined not to be seen. What had made up his mind was that his erstwhile colleagues looked, somehow, younger. Not in physical appearance, but in everything else that mattered. 

"Wait," Sapphire's voice said. 

"What is it?" There was caution in Bronze's voice, but no great concern. 

"I thought I sensed another presence. Just for a moment." Steel couldn't see her, but he could imagine her finger pointing in his direction. He concentrated on suppressing his powers, drawing in the web of his senses. His costume changed to a simple grey cloak, covering a homespun tunic similar to the one Bronze was wearing. If anybody else did see him now, he must appear to be a human, no more nor less. 

"If there was anything, it's gone," Sapphire's voice said. "There's only the first one now." 

Still presenting the appearance of a normal human by every means at his disposal, Steel crept up to the hedge. This close, he could see that it was an elaborate structure, a wall of uprooted tree stumps woven together with branches. He wondered briefly how far the stumps had been brought; certainly, there were no trees of such a size on the island now. Had he dared to use his full strength, it would have been a simple matter to tear the barrier apart and force his way through. But revealing his presence in such a blatant manner was out of the question. Instead, he made his way around the perimeter and, after a while, discovered a gap large enough to see through, at least. 

The interior of the enclosure was a circle of trodden grass. In its centre, another stump was the focal point. It was larger than the ones that formed the hedge, and was inserted upside-down in the grass so that its roots clawed out above head height. The smoke that Steel had noticed appeared to be rising from a small fire, off to one side. Between the entrance and the stump were two lines of robed men, facing the stump, with elaborate headdresses on their heads and bronze knives in their hands. Between them, on the grass, lay the unmoving figure of another man. His hands and feet were bound with strips of leather, and the grass around his neck was stained with what looked like rust. 

"Sorry to disturb you," Sapphire's voice said. From Steel's vantage point, he couldn't see the other two Elements, but they must be standing at the entrance to the circle. 

One of the men closest to the stump turned, and snapped out a stream of angry words. Between the tone and his distant memories of similar languages, Steel understood enough to get the sense: How dare these strangers, whose presence was so displeasing to the ancestral spirits, intrude here? 

"Now, don't you try anything," Bronze said; Steel found his meaning clear even when expressed in the unfamiliar language. "We wouldn't want to hurt you." 

The only response was an order to the other men: Kill them. 

Bronze walked unhurriedly into Steel's limited field of view, stopped within arm's reach of the men, and planted his legs firmly on the ground. His shrewd eyes surveyed the force ranged against him, as if daring them to attack. 

The nearest acolyte raised his knife. A moment later, Bronze, without appearing to move, was holding it by the tip. He held it up, then bent the blade around his finger as if it had been nothing more than paper. Several more of the men, with yelps of pain, dropped their knives as if they'd suddenly become red hot. 

"Be off with you now," Bronze said, emphasizing his words with a slow but unmistakeable gesture. "We've got business here." 

Several of the acolytes broke and ran; Steel was obliged to turn his attention to the world outside the enclosure, lest any of them should come upon him unexpectedly. Once he was satisfied that nobody was headed in his direction, he returned his attention to the interior of the sacred grove. Those priests who had not fled were lying scattered on the ground, while Bronze was idly dusting his hands. 

_Showing off,_ Steel reflected. The suggestion _For Sapphire's benefit, perhaps?_ followed almost immediately. 

As if to answer his question, Sapphire walked into the centre of the enclosure, her expression as calm and professional as it always was. She laid her hands on the inverted stump that was the focus of this place, and hastily pulled them back. 

"It knows we're here," she said. 

Bronze nodded. "So it should. But knowing won't help it now." 

He grasped the stump as if about to uproot it bare-handed. The wood around his hands blackened, and the enclosure filled with the sound of creaking, rending wood. Sapphire, responding to a mental instruction Steel didn't hear, knelt down, and pressed her hands to the stump at ground level. Even with his attenuated senses, he could tell that something was being forced out of the wood — something that had no right to be there. And doubtless a remnant would elude the two Elements, escape into the earth below their feet, and build up its power through the millennia, always seeking a way back. 

The way things were looking at present, he might be doing something similar for the next few thousand years. 

He remained in his place while Sapphire and Bronze completed their long-ago assignment in textbook fashion, and then disappeared into the gaps between the seconds. Once he was sure he was alone, he discarded all concealment and rose to his feet. He might easily have forced his way through the hedge, but a lingering distaste for showmanship sent him to the existing entrance. 

As he passed through the entrance, he saw that the man who'd given the orders had recovered consciousness, and crawled over to where the sacrificial victim lay. It wasn't difficult for Steel to pick the sense from his words. For their crimes against the sacred grove — the man cast an anguished look at the desecrated, blackened stump — the intruders would pay a terrible price. Gently, he removed what appeared to be a bead necklace from the corpse and placed it around his own neck. 

Steel made as if to run forward and stop the man, but stopped himself. It was not for him to interfere with this event: it was part of the pattern of history. 

With a ghastly cry, the high priest collapsed beside his last victim, fresh blood staining the grass and sinking into the earth. The entity that Bronze and Sapphire had imprisoned had claimed its first life. The first, doubtless, of many that it would claim in its futile struggle for freedom. At least, Steel reminded himself, it was his task to make sure it _was_ futile. 

Cautiously, he approached the bodies. The bead necklace that Steel had earlier noticed had snapped, its beads scattered around his outflung hand. Several were stained with blood. Experimentally, Steel picked up one bead, then another— 

And he was standing in the cramped fuselage of an aeroplane, with his hands raised and a pistol pressed to his back.


	3. Chapter 3

"Turn around slowly," a voice said, in muffled German. 

Steel did as he was told. His hands, which he was keeping at shoulder height, were empty, with the bead he'd been holding nowhere to be seen. He focused his attention on the man in front of him: presumably, the radio operator, or one of the gunners. The man's expression couldn't be read behind his oxygen mask, but his eyes were wide with what Steel assumed to be shock. Which, Steel supposed, was only to be expected, since in his limited human worldview it was impossible for Steel to have got there. 

_This is where Sapphire would be useful,_ Steel thought. When it came to manipulating humans in all their irrationality, she definitely had a wider armoury to call on. His best attempts at diplomacy would probably end with his captor panicking and shooting him. 

"I have an important message for you," he said out loud. "This aircraft is in danger." He looked down at the pistol in the airman's hand, keeping a wary eye on the trigger finger. "You know it's impossible for me to be here: and yet, here I am. Do you seriously think you could harm me with that?" 

The muzzle of the gun dipped a few degrees. 

"Who are you?" the man asked. 

"I am Steel." Steel lowered his hands. "If you want to live, you must do as I tell you. Time is not on our side." 

"You spoke of danger." 

Steel nodded. "There is— a malevolent entity, you might call it. It seeks to gain power by the destruction of this plane and everyone aboard." 

"And I suppose it's called 'Churchill,'" another voice said, from behind Steel. 

Steel didn't move, but he could sense the second man's presence within inches of his back. 

"If either of you fires, he risks hitting the other," he said. 

"Against the bulkhead. Now!" This was the second man: by his voice, older, more hardened, less open to persuasion. Steel backed against the bulkhead, gripping its edge with his right hand. The two airmen were now in front of him, and both their pistols were aimed in his direction. 

"You don't realise—" Steel began. 

"Quiet!" The second man snapped. "You're a spy. It is the only possible explanation." 

He squeezed the trigger of his pistol, only to find that it did not budge by even the smallest amount. He tried again, with a similar lack of success, and again. Then he holstered the pistol, took his colleague's gun, and repeated the experiment. 

"Sabotaged," he said. "How did you... no matter. Even a saboteur needs to breathe." 

He stepped forward, and reached out for Steel's neck. 

_So much for subtlety,_ Steel reflected, and knocked him out cold with a right cross to the jaw. At the same moment, the vibration in the fuselage changed, becoming harsher. Steel reached out to the source of the vibration: the starboard engine. Exploring it with his senses, he tried to detect the source of the fault. It was overheating; that, at least, could be easily corrected, but draining heat from its tortured components was only a stopgap. The problem seemed to be an insufficient supply of oil. Telekinetically, he wrenched at the valve that blocked the flow, forcing it open. It wasn't faulty, he realised. The oil had been deliberately cut off. There was a saboteur on board, most likely one who wasn't aware what he was doing. 

His attention was dragged back to his surroundings by the sound of more boots on the metal floor. Three more people were crowding into the tiny space. Added to those already present, that had to be the entire crew of the bomber. Their expressions were blank, their eyes unfocused. At his feet, the man he'd knocked out was pulling himself back upright, the same expression on his face. 

"Keep back," Steel said. "If anyone tries anything, he'll regret it." 

The men showed no sign that they'd even heard him. As one, they advanced upon him. They, or rather the thing that was controlling them, had obviously realised pistols weren't going to work: one was holding an axe, another a fire extinguisher. 

Steel knocked the nearest of his assailants down, but he was up again in an instant, unharmed by a blow that should have broken bones. As the imprisoned entity's escape came closer and closer to certainty, its power was growing. Before long it would be able to overwhelm even Steel. 

But then, brute power was not the only field on which they contended. 

Clearing his mind, Steel closed his eyes and reached out with every sense at his disposal. His adversary's power might be increasing, but it was all being channelled through a single, vulnerable link. And it must be close: probably carried by one of the men. One by one, he concentrated on them, examining their possessions minutely. 

_Got you._

With a sound of tearing fabric, a neat hole was punched through the radio operator's flight suit, as the keepsake in his breast pocket shot through the air into Steel's hand. It was the amber bead he'd touched, back in the grove: unlike him, it had taken the slow path through history, passed from person to person until it found one suitable to the buried entity's plans. 

As Steel's hand closed around the bead, all five airmen leaped at him, aiming for that same hand. But too late. A very little pressure was enough to crush the bead utterly, its structure crumbling away. In the last fraction of a second before contact was utterly lost, one man's hand closed around a dropped pistol. Before Steel could cause the gun's mechanism to seize, the man had fired. The bullet missed Steel, but must have hit some vital part of the aircraft: with a soft 'whoosh', the windows on the port side lit up with orange fire. 

Freed from control, the airmen shook their heads, and suddenly seemed to realise their desperate situation. The pilot barked out orders; within seconds, they had jumped, one after the other, from the doomed aircraft. Steel dismissed them from his mind; whether they managed to parachute to safety was no concern of his. Moving quickly, he made his way forward to the cockpit, and took his place in the pilot's seat. The bomber was still aimed directly for Fenchurch St Paul; he turned onto a new heading, reset the primitive autopilot, and pushed the joystick forward. The cockpit whirled around him, the roar of the engines rising to a tortured whine. Behind him, the fuselage was wreathed in flames, and filling with choking black smoke. 

_There's no way out of here,_ he thought. _Until the assignment's fully complete, of course, and that might be a little too late._

In the view ahead, wildly spinning, fields and watercourses were hurtling up to meet him.


	4. Chapter 4

With a full bomb load, the blazing Heinkel hit a turnip field more or less dead centre. Between the impact of the crash and the explosion of its bombs, the aircraft was almost instantly reduced to fragments. Those portions of its frame not blown to smithereens were melted by the intense heat, sagging as they lost their strength. 

For Steel, time had seemed to stop at the first impact, the cockpit frozen in the process of shattering around him. The terrific sound of destruction stretched into one continuous roar, slowly becoming purer, almost musical. The aircraft's destruction faded from his sight, leaving him in darkness, a darkness through which he was falling. 

He landed on the belfry floor with barely a stagger. 

"There you are," Bronze said, as the echoing tones of the bell faded. "We were beginning to wonder where you'd got to." 

"Round and about." Steel crossed to the base of the ladder, and began to climb. "You need to work on your aim. I ended up four thousand-odd years in the past." 

Bronze didn't seem particularly worried at the thought. "Accidents will happen." 

Steel reached the level of the bellframe. "As long as they don't happen to me." 

"Now, don't lose your temper," Sapphire said, crossing the frame to join him. "We can't all be as flawless as you." 

He held her eyes with his own, trying to guess what meaning lay behind that last remark. No matter how well they'd grown to know each other, some part of her mind would always be a mystery to him. And, presumably, vice versa. 

In the end, he shrugged. "Thank you for getting me out of that crash, anyway. Both of you. How did you do it?" 

Bronze, by now, had also joined them, his thumbs tucked into his belt. "Same way we got you in." 

"But I'd broken the link by then." 

"We found another link," Sapphire said. "After all, you were carrying part of me with you." She reached into his pocket and retrieved her torch. "I told you to bring it back." 

Steel looked from her to Bronze and back. "And what if I hadn't had that torch?" 

"I daresay I'd have thought of something," Bronze said casually. "Anyway, it's not worth wasting thought on." He held out his hand. "Ready?" 

After a momentary hesitation, Steel took it. At the same time, Sapphire grasped his other hand. 

A moment later, they were gone, leaving the bells to their patient vigil.


End file.
